


Silver-tongued

by penguistifical



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Fluffy, M/M, once again it's time to take some liberties with the video game lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penguistifical/pseuds/penguistifical
Summary: There are occasional advantages to traveling with a certain bard.Monster hunting doesn't always have to mean monster slaying...
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 45
Kudos: 1069
Collections: Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development





	Silver-tongued

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't a sequel to "Priorities" but I might put them together in a set later
> 
> I did a set of three short monster encounters where Jaskier came out slightly worse for the wear  
> so here's two where he does very well, for fairness

A crypt isn’t the worst place Geralt has had to spend the night, but he doesn’t expect he’ll get any rest.

It’s been a quiet evening so far, which isn’t a match for what he’d been told above ground.  
  
This is the burial vault of a smallish town. The place isn’t nearly prosperous enough to be the home of a lord, and it’s distant enough from most larger cities that its fealty is nearly forgotten. 

With no soldiers or aid to call on, the villagers were glad enough to see a witcher. Something has been haunting this place, perhaps quite literally. The village has a small church to the goddess Melitele, and those who have been by the church or the crypt after dark have reported howling cries and tortured groans.

There’s no mayor in a place this small, but there is a chief of sorts for the village. Geralt had visited his small stone home, where he’d examined the chief’s warriors who had braved the crypt. Most of these men have wounds, shallow jagged cuts placed with precision and skill.  
  
It makes him wonder at the nature of the beast that awaits.  
  
Those with injury claim that something ambushed them when they tried to investigate the tormented shrieks, something that blew out their lamps. They were attacked in darkness, and had to flee.

Reminded that the creature may not approach in the light, Geralt extinguishes one of the torches he’d brought down, inviting shadows and monsters both in the flickering darkness that remains. As the flame sputters out, there’s a matching indignant sputter from his companion with him in the tomb.

The people of this small place, without ready access to entertainment, had also been pleased to see a bard. Jaskier could easily have stayed above ground at the chief’s house, but had left the warm welcome of the living to follow Geralt into the surround of the eternally unblinking audience of skulls lining the vault. 

“Yes, make it spookier, please. I was feeling ever so cozy before you increased the, ah, dramatic ambiance.” Jaskier mutters, walking back to Geralt. 

Geralt gestures to the steps behind him, inviting the bard to leave. Jaskier rolls his eyes and goes nowhere, of course.

“What do you think it is, then, a ghost? Who has unfinished business in a crypt? This is exactly where one goes when all business is finished.”

The remaining light plays across the grinning rows of skulls, a macabre audience for the bard’s joke.

Geralt considers. The wounds that he saw don’t really match, but terrible cries by the dead are generally a pretty sure sign. “It might be a banshee.” 

When Geralt had finished investigating the marks on the chief’s warriors and hearing their lacking descriptions, he’d left their tents to see Jaskier talking to the gently smiling older woman responsible for keeping the hearth and altar of the temple.

Jaskier, seeing him emerge, had given her a quick grin, patted her hand, and returned to Geralt’s side.

“I sincerely hope, Jaskier, that you know better than to flirt with the priestess?”

“I was _not_. She’s old enough to be your...well, someone's grandmother, anyway. She’s just a nice lady who doesn’t mind a bard who enjoys life.” Jaskier had paused, thoughtfully drawing his hands down the teardrop back of his lute, but not playing. “Her brother died recently. She’s lonely….”

Geralt had expected that remark to be followed up with something salacious, despite the priestess’s age, but Jaskier had been quiet, mulling over that thought.

He’s still somewhat quiet, humming with nervous energy and pacing back and forth, walking from the small altar at the far end of the crypt back across to where Geralt stands, blocking the stairs.  
  
At least Jaskier doesn’t seem like he’s in a mind to try and cure his own "loneliness" tonight. In a small village like this, where everyone knows everyone, it would be nearly impossible to be discreet.

He’s distracted from his thoughts by Jaskier’s sharp cry of alarm.

“Don’t put out the other light, Geralt! We can’t all see in the dark, you know.”

He isn’t dousing the light. The torch is slowly guttering out by itself. In its place, a sickly spectral glow is beginning to manifest in the center of the room.  
  
Between him and Jaskier. Fuck.

“Don’t move,” Geralt whispers across to the bard, and sees Jaskier’s quick terrified nod in response.

The specter between them takes form out of writhing green smoke, the shape of it sometimes resolving into a cloaked skeletal figure before fading back into ethereal fog. The most visible and unfading aspect of the creature are the blades it's holding in each hand. 

Geralt draws his own sword and squares himself, fully blocking any exit from the crypt, should the creature attempt to flee upwards and into the church. 

Seeing his weapon, the specter shrieks at him in fury from within the hood, sounding like a series of iron gates smashing along a stone wall.

Geralt steps forward, guarding against the specter’s raised knives, and-

“That's what a banshee sounds like?” Jaskier says, wonderingly.”I mean, no offense, but, bit of a disappointment?”

The specter slowly lowers its knives, and fades into nothingness.  
  
And promptly re-materializes the few feet over, standing next to Jaskier by the altar.  
  
It’s not carrying knives anymore. It actually seems to now have the outline of a face within its cloak, like a faint mask pressed against a thin cloth. This suggestion of a face is studying the bard, and Jaskier examines back.

“Listen, we’re all new at some point. Just straighten up, take a deep breath from the diaphragm, see?” To Geralt’s utter disbelief, Jaskier demonstrates, gesturing down at himself. The bard is actually teaching this specter to howl more loudly. “Put your hands slightly above your stomach muscles, and then, just pour yourself into it.”

The specter tilts its head.

“Err...do you have muscles?” Jaskier wonders, and before Geralt can yell for him to stop, the bard reaches out and feels out at the wraith’s middle.

Impossibly, the wraith allows this and lets out a small groan that solidifies into an unmistakable chuckle.

With something like a full body stretch, the spectral form pulls itself together within the roiling smoke and emerges as an older man, smiling at them both. The figure relaxes, sitting down on the air to study Jaskier with interest, and Geralt with a bit more wariness. 

“So, the screaming thing definitely wasn't all I’ve heard it should be from the tales, but is the rest of this really something banshees do?”

“No, Jaskier.” Geralt won’t sheath his sword yet, but the air of danger has lifted, and he walks over to them. “This is a penitent.” Not a mindless wraith, lashing out in rage, but a creature with purposeful unfinished business.

“Oh,” says Jaskier, and then, as he looks into the penitent’s amused and gentle eyes, “Oh!” He reaches out to try and touch the creature’s hand, but his own passes easily again through its unphysical form. “We’ll tell her,” he says, earnestly, looking to Geralt. The witcher nods, though he’s not quite sure what he’s agreeing to, but it seems to satisfy Jaskier. 

The bard looks around, and shrugs.“So...how do we prove things are all right, I guess? What would you have brought back to prove the deed?”

“Leaving unharmed with something from the crypt would be sufficient.” Geralt answers, and regards the row of skulls that mark the departed. Most, though not all, have a coin in-between their teeth in remembrance. His gaze lingers on those skulls missing the coin, and wonders how many of the chief’s warriors have come down to the crypt to try to rob the dead.

Geralt reaches for one of those skulls missing its coin, and watches the eyes of the penitent flare with greenish spirit-fire. The witcher holds out a hand, pacifying.

“I’ll see that it’s brought back.”

Later, Geralt displays the skull for the village, pointedly moving it so that the unsettling and empty coinless grin aims at the chief’s assistants. He talks about how the village has come into possession of a powerful guard to protect against graverobbers, a creature that will strike out at those who attempt to disturb the dead.

He notes which of the wounded assistants pale as he turns the skull to face them, accusingly.

He deliberately leaves the house for a moment to enjoy the air and sunlight after a night in a tomb, and, when he returns, sees that the skull has had a coin replaced between its teeth. There’s a small pile of coins and looted belongings beside, as well.

He scoops up the handful of money and takes the returned grave goods and skull to the priestess. Jaskier is already inside the church, talking to her, telling her about how her brother is caring for the village even still.

The witcher sees now, as she smiles fondly at Jaskier, the resemblance between the priestess in the church above and the penitent in the crypt below.

The priestess accepts the coins Geralt gives her to be returned to the tomb, but presses a small package on Jaskier, insisting when he demurs.

“You’re a good boy, bard. But, please, take this, with my thanks to you both."

Jaskier investigates the gift when they’re resting some distance away from the place. The wrapped pouch turns out to contain dried and sugared fruits, a pleasant treat for the road.

The bard pops one into his mouth with pleasure, but then sighs. “It really wasn’t much of an adventure, though, was it? I’m supposed to be writing your grand deeds.”

“You wouldn’t consider what you did last night to be worthy of a song?” Geralt asks.

“Well, no, it’s not really the sort of thing that goes over well with a crowd. They like heroics, you know? The clash of swords, the thrill of combat, and, well, perhaps the lustful reward of a hero after. Not, ah, you know, the thanks of a grandmotherly priestess.”

Jaskier reaches over in mockery of the priestess’s gesture earlier and pats Geralt’s arm with a falsetto imitation. “You’re a good witcher, boy. You dealt with the monster.”

Geralt lifts Jaskier’s hand off his arm, but holds it until the bard looks at him.

“I do only hunt monsters, only those creatures which are a danger to humanity. I could have committed a terrible wrong last night.” That’s all he means to say, but, seeing Jaskier watching him expectantly, he finds himself saying a little more, as he often does around the bard. “Your silver tongue was more effective than a silver blade.”

He’s pleased when Jaskier’s cheeks go slightly pink, but the bard only retorts, “Do you hold hands with everybody you thank?”   
  
Geralt rolls his eyes and pulls Jaskier into his lap. The bard merely chortles and licks sugar off his fingertips, settling in as Geralt runs his hands through Jaskier’s hair.

“So, you were glad I was there? Tell me more. Should I have sang for the ghost, do you think?”

“Why are you never content with a compliment, Jaskier? A bard should know how to take praise.”

“Of course I know how to take praise, that’s why I’m asking for more. A performer likes shows of appreciation, you know?”

“One show is fine.”

“A couple would be better, I think.”

Geralt says only “Hm.” pointedly, but takes a piece of sugared apple out of the pouch and offers it to the bard. Jaskier nips his hand a little when he takes it, but he’s used to the bard’s contrarily affectionate nature of making sure that even when they’re alone, Jaskier has the witcher’s complete attention. 

* * *

Geralt had thought the encounter with the penitent would have remained unique, but It’s not long after that Jaskier gets a second opportunity to encore his bardic talents for monster charming over monster slaying.

There hadn’t been a chance of persuading the musician to stay behind, once he’d heard that there were sirens plaguing a fishing and trading port. 

Geralt remembers the shine in Jaskier’s eyes when he’d been told there was a bruxa, a creature known for “singing,” and resigns himself to purchasing enough wax and wool for two sets of ear protection.

He cursed himself for a fool for preparing to take Jaskier along, as he left the bard in a tavern while he went out to obtain materials for siren-guarding wear.  
  
He curses himself for twice a fool when he returns to the tavern to see that the bard has already left.

They’d been told the creatures favor a small beach away from the docks, and sure enough, as Geralt tracks his way there, he can hear the sounds of Jaskier’s lute calling to him. 

He’s rarely surprised, thanks to enhanced witcher senses, but he can’t help but gape at what he sees as he rounds the cove.  
  
Jaskier is sitting on a large rock made available by the low tides, surrounded by temporary small tidepools reflecting the moonlight, and a veritable chorus of intrigued waterfolk. The creatures have hauled out to the rocks, or lounge, partially submerged, listening to the sounds of the lute.

As Geralt slowly, cautiously approaches, he can see that several of them don’t have their tails arched over their heads, as he previously thought, but rather are bathing their wings in the moonlight.

It depends where and when a place is, for what they call their creatures, and monster names can become tangled in the telling and exchange of lore. In another town, these monsters might have been called nixa, or undines, half person with a sea serpent’s tail and scaled wings. For once, the stories about their luring reputation are mostly true - the creatures are known for singing to attract the unwary, and then, when the prey approaches, abruptly shifting from beautiful humanoid to terrifying scaled beast.  
  
They’re fearsome opponents in water or in air, and Jaskier is sitting amidst them as cheerfully as if they’re an audience at a village gathering.

Bizarrely, Jaskier’s group of admirers is equally mixed of nixa lolling in highly humanoid forms, but also those reclining to listen in all scales. A few of them are something of a mixture of both. Apparently the group has taken whatever form they feel they’re most comfortable in to listen to Jaskier.  
  
The sirens are clearly fascinated as Jaskier plays and croons to them.  
  
A couple seem interested in the patterning of Jaskier’s doublet -the bard does look particularly fine, apparently he’d dressed in full performer’s garb to go out to the sirens.

One siren is actually perching behind Jaskier where he sits comfortably on his barnacled rock, running her claws through his short hair. She holds a strand of her own kelplike braid up in comparison, and Geralt would swear she giggles.

However, the rest of the nixa’s fascination is on the bard’s lute and voice. They’re watching his hands and throat, and Geralt isn’t sure how long the interest will remain positive.

One of the sirens is particularly large. She’s hauled out slightly apart from the group, and he recognizes a leader’s positioning for the best view to guard the pack. Her form is all monstrous, scaled and dangerous, and he can make out by the fine moonlight that she’s wearing a belt around her upper arm. Surely a trophy taken from some slain sailor.

The witcher slowly inches out onto the beach, but doesn’t move further.

If he aggresses, Jaskier will certainly die, torn to pieces in seconds.

Geralt watches in horrified fascination as one of the sirens reaches out to the lute and Jaskier stops strumming to push the clawed hand away.

“Now, listen, you beautiful...people? Lot. You beautiful lot are your own instruments, but this lovely lute can’t go under the waves.” Jaskier holds up the lute for the siren’s inspection, but keeps it close to his chest. “I can’t get water on it, yes?”

The creature looks over the wood of the lute, and ripples his wings in what must be the equivalent of a siren shrug before sitting back to look up at Jaskier expectantly.

The bard obliges, continuing and finishing his tune with a flourish.

As Jaskier stands on the rock, Geralt tenses. The bard’s been amusing, but it may have been in the way of pre-meal entertainment from the actual meal.  
Jaskier looks over the now-submerged path he’d taken before when he walked out to the rock. The tides have risen slightly. He’d been able to stroll out without any harm, but made no plan for a safe return, or any return.

This, Geralt thinks, is entirely fucking typical.

The leader of the nixa unfurls her wings fully and gestures to the rest of the pack. They one by one slip into the water and vanish under the waves and reflected stars, though a few stop briefly to brush against Jaskier’s ankles or touch the hem of his doublet. 

With a quick flit of her wings, the leader of the sirens moves to Jaskier’s rock, where the bard is slightly wobbling. Jaskier yelps as she wraps her arms around him, and Geralt rushes out, pounding down the beach with his sword drawn.

The siren leader launches them both off the rock and glides easily to the shore. She looks over Geralt somewhat scornfully, and deposits Jaskier roughly in his direction on the sand.

“Ssso, no water on it, yesss?” Her voice is sibilant, suggestive of the hissing murmur of the waves.

“Uh, yes, thank you!” Jaskier scrambles to his feet. “So, um. Will you be staying long?”

She shakes her hand, and gestures in the direction of the port. The nixa are feeling the danger of the closeness as well, it seems, and will be moving on.

The siren holds out her hand to the bard, offering something, but Jaskier’s response is automatic: to take her hand and offer the back of her scaled and webbed paw a courtly kiss, as if she’s a baroness in a ballroom.

Her answering smile is full of fang, and she presses her gift into his palm before taking to the air. 

Geralt and Jaskier watch her vanish into the sky.

After a moment, Jaskier says “That would have been incredibly awkward if she’d decided to take me with them.”

Geralt puts his hand on Jaskier’s shoulder, holding him down to the ground, with him. “What did she give you?”

Jaskier opens his hand to show a small, ridged siren scale, glimmering like a jewel.

  
  


Back at the tavern, Geralt investigates the scale, but it appears only a token of regard, smelling vaguely of tears, and nothing of enchantment.

Jaskier, sitting beside him, is trying out the bars of a new composition, something about the dangers of approaching those who are beautiful but wish not to be bothered. It’s not immediately apparent that it’s a song about the sirens.

The tavern keeper, a woman with the look of a retired mercenary, gives Jaskier an approving nod for his lyrics, and shortly after a server brings them both tankards of ale and a plate of bread and cheese, on the house.

Geralt will discuss later with the harbormaster the details of a payment he’s not entirely sure he deserves.

“You simply wandered out to meet them?” he asks Jaskier.

“Oh, well, I just wanted to hear their singing. When I got close enough to hear them, I walked up and tried to accompany them. Next thing I know, I’m performing for the whole bunch, and it’s as nice an audience as I’ve ever had, let me tell you that.”

Geralt wonders what the nixa had made of the bard. Jaskier’s got a curious mix of manners from court and from slums resulting in a blend that is entirely Jaskier.

The sirens are used to attracting prey with their musical voices and offering up their bodies as an enticing lure to draw in the feast. However, there are also tales of hunters who seek them out, attempting to pursue and capture sirens for their beauty.  
  
Jaskier's often looking for fun but always leaving easily, brushing rejection off like raindrops from waterproofed leathers. 

By the fascinated nature of the scaled crowd that had surrounded Jaskier, these sirens have never attracted anyone who willing trotted up for the music alone, and who expected nothing but to listen to them.

“Ugh, Geralt, the back of her hand didn’t half taste of rotten fish. So,” and the bard reaches over to take back his scale. “What can I do with this, ah, lovely present? I’ve heard of musical scales, but I don’t know what to make of this sort.”

“It’s a potent alchemy ingredient. Soak it in wine for at least a day, and then grind it into a powder and mix it back into the wine. It’s said such a drink gives one the voice of a siren.”

Jaskier plucks a chord thoughtfully. “Forever?”

“A few hours.”

“That seems a waste of such a pretty. A few hours, and then it’d wear off and I’d be left with my voice.”

“That’s no bad thing.” Geralt says, thinking about how the night’s turned out.

Jaskier leans on his shoulder, easily, comfortably. “I knew you liked my voice, despite what you said before about filling-less pies.”

“Jaskier, do you remember what I said before about bards who can’t take a compliment?”

“Bards like compliments.” Jaskier looks up at him winningly.

“Some bards more than most.” Geralt mutters, but waits for Jaskier to become distracted again by feeling out his new song. When the bard has shifted his focus back to the lute, Geralt dips his head to murmur into Jaskier’s ear. “I followed the sounds of your music out to the beach. The sounds of sirens may have called you over, but you’re the siren that called me. You looked like you belonged with them, a lovely creature to sit out on the ocean in the moonlight and enchant listeners with your looks and music.”

He smiles at Jaskier’s shiver, and watches the musician run through the same set of notes, as he does when pretending he’s not trying to regain his composure. 

“I wonder…” Jaskier turns the scale over in his hands a few times, and then brings it down across the lute strings, as if it’s a pick, for a resulting quiet and liquid metallic rippling of sound.

Geralt hasn’t heard of any lore that describes using siren scales as musical instruments.

“How long were you playing for them before I got there?” he asks, watching the bard try out a few more eerie tones with the siren scale.

“No more than a few tunes, really. Oh, do you think they’ll learn and sing my songs?”

Jaskier is positively delighted at the prospect. Geralt isn’t sure how the magic of nixa is cast, or if they can learn new songs. But….he thinks about how the lead siren had dumped Jaskier unceremoniously at his feet.

“Jaskier, did you sing ‘Toss a Coin to your Witcher’ at them?”

Jaskier grins at him.

“Jaskier…” 

The bard merely laughs and pulls another liquid ripple of music from the lute. Geralt shakes his head in disbelief as nearby patrons turn to listen as if enchanted, but can't stop himself from smiling at his own siren of a bard.

**Author's Note:**

> really enjoying riding the wave of inspiration from this show  
> toss a coin to my WIPs that I will return to and finish at some point
> 
> the idea of skulls with coins is very inspired by the crypt scene in the golden compass
> 
> also thanks everybody who leaves kudos and comments, you are all great~


End file.
